Welcome back to Blasphemous Nutrition! I am your host Aimee, here with some good old fashioned Mexican grandma wisdom to keep you sane while chaos reigns.
We all have had the expereince that I’m talking about today. Many of my clients claim to be all or nothing when it comes to lifestyle changes - they get on a perfect, rigid diet plan, get their exercise dialed in and are starting to feel good, and them something derails them and a case, or a pallet, of the fuckits arrives leading them to abandon their plans and goals to deal with the moment. This cycle of on again off again is not wholly inevitable, but it also isn’t reasonable to expect that we can implement a plan - even a perfect one - and have it work without interruption for the foreseeable future. The great consequence of all or nothing thinking is that it usually leaves us with nothing. Rigidity is fragile, flexibility and adaptation is enduring. It is the nature of evolution, and those who can adapt are those who thrive.
So today I want to talk about adaptability, and how to thrive despite unpredicted events. I’m going to lay out my personal formula for doing so and give you clear cut examples of how to maintain some semblance of your health habits no matter what life throws at you.
let’s start at the beginning. We have a plan in place and it is going well. We start to feel like we are getting momentum, or even feel really confident that we’ve nailed in our strategy for long term, consistent goals in activity and eating for a significant period of time. But life is anything but consistent, and adapting to changes are what makes those who succeed over decades able to do so, rather than having a lifelong habit of on-again, off-again plans, programs and protocols.
Even as you are implementing a plan, you want to think of the contingencies before they arrive.
The easiest way to start is to create a back up plan for situations that you can see coming. Foresight is a superpower not to be squandered. You know each year the holidays arrive and pumpkin-spice everything takes over. If you know you are going to visit family in a rural area that forgets plants are actually edible, what will you do? The expected ebbs and flows of life and seasons offer us an opportunity to think in terms of adapting to the environment.
But even when we take these situations into consideration, there can always be something unexpected that shows up that totally puts your plan, and your back up plan completely unsustainable and irrelevant.
This is where and when we need to create Emergency Contingency Plans.
In those situations, here is what to do:
release expectations of both ideal outcomes as well as fatalistic ‘all hope is lost’ thinking. The world is full of infinite possibility, and when we maintain this possibility, we find all sorts of resources that are never discovered when we rigidly adhere to the ‘one true way’ or throw in the towel completely.
Ask HOW CAN !? the 2 questions. Keeping your mind focused on protein and produce give you opportunities to find them!
Let’s look at common scenarios:
Scenario 1: no choice over food served over several days
Maybe this is a family reunion, a work conference, or a flight across the world. It is a situation where, as my super-religious college friend jamie would say, you have to ‘let go and let God’. But, to counter that faith-driven adage is yet another which I heard a lot growing up: “God helps those who help themselves.” Both sentiments have their place, but we are often quick to give up our own power when we don’t have a clear solution immediately at hand.
This past week I helped a client scout options near a hotel in the Southeast US to pick up resources for a work trip. Because she doesn’t know whether or not she has a fridge, we discussed possible options that don’t need refrigeration if they are consumed within 24 hours. I helped her locate a market within walking distance to pick up fruit and snacks suitable for her goals, and we found several restaurants that, despite the notorious reputation of the south, had enough protein and vegetables available to give her most of what she would need for 2 of her 3 daily meals. We strategized options that were independent of what would be given at the catered event and workarounds within what is often served at these conferences.
When you are at a catered work event with few healthy options - seek out the protein and minimize processed foods. If they serve little boxed lunches with sandwiches or wraps, take 2 box lunch sandwiches and put double the innards into one sandwich or if watching your carb intake, turn it into an open face sandwich on one slice of bread or eat the guts of the wrap and leave behind the tortilla. The bulk of the nutrition will be in the turkey or egg salad and any veg that is in between the bread or wrap. Bring extra protein snacks like jerky, shelf-stable protein drinks, or even canned fish in your luggage and find a mini-mart or grocery store near your hotel or conference center that you can walk or Uber to get produce options like fresh fruit, pre-cut veggies and a dip, or pre-mixed ready to eat salads.
I had a client a number of years ago who was embarking on a road trip to visit a parent to help him transition to assisted living. So here we have a situation with several days on the road, staying in a home that wasn’t hers with limited supplies, and a task that was itself quite stressful. If she entered it without thinking, she would likely drive until hungry and then look for the nearest drive through, grab whatever was easy to eat in the car, get to her location and maybe get a quick bowl of cereal for breakfast, have snacks or just skip lunch, and then order take-out for dinner. However, in assessing the logistics of the trip, she actually had a great deal at her disposal to stay on top of things; a car, a cooler, grocery stores along the way, and refrigeration where she was staying.
So we made a plan where she would look for gas stations to refuel that were attached to a grocery store, look for restaurants ahead of time along her route with options that would align with her needs, and planned a master list of groceries that could be quickly and easily prepared once she arrived so she did not have to rely predominately on pizza, cereal and scrambled eggs. After a month away, on our follow-up session she was ecstatic to report that, while it was far from perfect, she did not gain any weight during the trip and was able to pick up where she left off when she came back home, but in reality was much stronger and more savvy for having had the experience in the first place!
Let’s look at a more extreme scenario:
Scenario 2 : family member in hospital - living there most of the time
Solution: Ask the 2 questions at cafeteria; look for protein options from vending machine, such as jerky or meat sticks. You may also be able to get meal delivery to hospital, and look online for restaurants nearby that have their menus displayed on google or their website to order from. It may also be possible to have someone bring groceries to you with prepared foods such as hummus and pre-cut veg, grilled chicken, a pre-made salad, etc. Meal trains are often created when people are at home in recovery, but these can also be created for people who are keeping vigil at hospital.
Take breaks to pace the hospital floors. take the stairs up and down several flights, use bathroom sinks or chairs in a quiet sitting area as a place for incline push-ups and squats. If other family members are also there, tag team and give one another opportunities to step away and address your own mental and physical health needs. It will be far from perfect, but every step you take to maintain the consistent value of doing what you can for your health, even in the worst-case scenario, builds the importance of that value within you, fosters skills you did not know you had, and can be a sliver of comfort in taking more control over one aspect of your life when other things have gone sideways.
It is crucial in these times that we keep our own health in the forefront, because times of chaos and high stress are as physically demanding as any workout or race. When we eat the foods which nourish our bodies, we are able to think more clearly, stay more level-headed, and resist all sorts of illnesses that are prevalent in airports, hospitals and large groups of people.
Being a master veg hunter, I have honed my eagle eye to find produce in gas stations, airports, hospitals, on road trips, transatlantic flights, and small towns with scant options.
It’s an indispensable skill, and one I’m eager to share with all of you! Starting March 1, I will be relaunching my 30 days of Glorious Greens challenge, which is aimed to help you discover the glory and power of green veggies through fun, action-oriented daily lessons and an online community. Green veggies are consistently shown in research to have the strongest association with sustained health throughout the lifespan and reduced risk of all cause mortality.
Today’s episode is sponsored by chaos, which has come into my life for a visit. For the next month or so I will be aiming to drop a podcast twice a month with relevant, important topics and pick up weekly episodes when things settle down!
Until next time, my blasphemous buddies, this is aimee, headed out into the crazy-ass chaos with my kale and protein shake in hand!
Share this post